Catalyst

Chapter Two: A New Look

Oi, I can't believe I'm doing this. Sam stood bent over a sink in a small hotel bathroom with a towel over her shoulders. Her hair was soaked. With dye. After today, Sam Manson was going be a blonde. This reeks…literally. And it did. She had bleached her hair first, and was now applying a "golden blonde" hair dye to hopefully give it a more natural look. The whole thing was a very smelly process.

But it was necessary. If she didn't want to be found, she had to drop the goth look. And blonde was definitely not goth. She was currently in South Dakota, about halfway done with her trip to Idaho, which was her final destination. She would be taking a different bus the rest of the way, and had taken advantage of the sixteen hour wait between rides to get a few errands done. After getting a hotel, she had made her way to a second hand clothing store and chosen several nondescript outfits for herself, right down to several pairs of shoes. They were neat, tidy looking ensembles that made her look a few years older. After tonight, she'd be a completely different person in the eyes of the casual observer.

There was no way she was giving up her ultra-recyclo vegetarian diet, though. Maybe it would cost a tiny bit more, but certain things weren't going. And…maybe she'd keep some of the goth stuff packed away. For memories.

After letting the dye sit for the required amount of time, she rinsed and patted her hair dry with the towel around her shoulders. She needed to get some sleep. It was already nearing ten o'clock, and she had to catch a six thirty a.m. bus the next morning. Traveling to Idaho was important. She had to remove herself by at least a few states from both Vlad and her family if she wanted to get lost and successfully stay that way.

Feeling fatigued, Sam headed toward the bed. She had to admit there was one added benefit to thinking things out ahead of time; there would always be another step of her relocation plan to keep her occupied so the little niggling details (like the fact she was leaving her friends and family behind) didn't have time to register. It wasn't like she could stay, in any case.

March 31st, 3 1/2 months after

"Mr. Fenton! I asked you a question." Danny blinked up at Mr. Lancer, completely lost. They locked eyes for a moment, and then Lancer glanced away, apparently deciding to let it slide. "Mr. Foley, help Mr. Fenton answer the question."

Great. He'd been zoning out again. In a way, Danny couldn't help it. He'd spent the last week flying around at night, looking for Sam, which meant he wasn't exactly getting a good night's rest. Danny stifled a yawn, and frowned to himself. He couldn't not do something, but somehow he still felt useless. Clearly she wasn't in Amity Park anymore, or in any of the nearby cities he could fly to and from in one night.

A few minutes later the lesson was over, and he was trudging out of the classroom with the other students, eyes on the floor.

"Mr. Fenton, a word." He looked up to find Mr. Lancer beckoning him to his desk. He sighed, and made his way over. He could see Tucker hovering by the door out of the corner of his eye. "Mr. Foley, you too."

They both looked down at Lancer, who was sitting, and waited for him to speak. They appeared to both be in trouble, though Danny couldn't fathom what Tucker, at least, had done wrong.

"I know you have a lot on your minds right now." Danny's eyes widened. Oh. This was about Sam. "As the vice principal, I have been made aware of Ms. Manson's disappearance, and am doing everything in my power to help speed along the search. I know you're both very close friends of hers, and so I understand your drop in attentiveness over the past week. You're worried, as are we all. But I think that keeping your minds focused on your school work at this time will help you considerably. As such, I would like both of you to come in for tutoring every day after school for an hour."

"What?" and "Mr. Lancer, is this really necessary?" were Danny's and Tucker's simultaneous responses to this suggestion. Danny continued on.

"Sir, with all due respect, I would prefer to spend that time helping in the search for Sam than worrying about my grades. Some things are more important."

"And…my grades haven't dropped, so…" That was Tucker.

"Gentlemen, this isn't just about grades. I think it's a good idea for both of you to think hard for an hour of your day on something other than your friend. You don't do it in class, so I'll be sure to keep you occupied during the tutoring sessions. It simply isn't healthy to continually worry twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. It may seem counter intuitive, but this time should help your equilibrium."

Neither boy agreed with him, but they didn't really have a choice, so they both nodded.

"Good. I'll see you in a few hours then." They made their way out, waiting until the chance of being overheard was gone.

"I can't believe this! Tucker, I don't have time for this. You know the discussion we had." Danny lowered his voice. "There hasn't been a ransom or anything for her, which would be a pretty obvious reason for kidnapping since she's rich. And if that's not it, then it has to be a ghost. You know I have enemies, and some of them..." Danny narrowed his eyes nervously, and lowered his voice more, "know about my human identity, Tuck."

"Maybe, but…" Tucker looked at him sidelong.

Danny's heart froze in his chest, and he looked away. Of course, there was one glaring solution to the problem he refused to acknowledge. She had lied to him and her parents simultaneously. They had both thought she was with the other group, and they hadn't sorted out the truth until after Spring Break. She could've simply…run away.

But why would she do that? He couldn't fathom it, and for the moment was shoving it into a dark corner in the back of his mind. Somehow, the idea that she would willingly leave them all behind; leave him behind, hurt more than some of the other possibilities at the moment. It would be better if she was stuck some place for a little while, waiting for him to swoop in and rescue her. He didn't want her to be hurt, of course, but if she was trapped and…unable to return that would somehow be better. Then all he had to do was rescue the damsel in distress, so to speak. But if she had purposefully run away, finding her might not solve things. And, of course, Sam was smart. If she didn't want to be found, she wouldn't be.

Danny frowned in frustration as he ran into a corner of a nearby cafeteria table. It was the lunch period, and he and Tucker were currently looking for a spot to eat. Danny had been on autopilot, but that only partially explained the clumsiness. Finally, near the beginning of his junior year, a substantial growth spurt had kicked in. In only six months, he had gone from five foot four to five foot ten, and he wasn't stopping, though it had slowed down in the last month. Tucker had grown too, though at a slower and steadier rate over the past few years. He was currently a few inches shorter than Danny, who secretly wondered who would be taller when all the growing was finished.

Not that it was important to him at the moment. There were bigger questions on his mind, and a little clumsiness he could deal with. Where would I go if I were Sam, and didn't want to be found?

But there was the crux: why would she want to disappear in the first place?

April 7, 3 months and 3 weeks after

Invisible eyes gazed stoically in through a third story apartment window. There was a young woman inside brushing her teeth at the bathroom sink. It was nearly one o'clock at night, and she looked dead on her feet. Figuratively speaking, of course. The invisible figure chuckled to himself. Few people could appreciate the humor in that as thoroughly as he could.

Vlad Plasmius crossed his arms in thought. Foolish girl. She should've known he had tracking devices placed inside all of his expensive equipment. He'd been aware of her every movement after she left his mansion, which was good since his hunch that she wasn't heading back home had been proven correct. Well, he had no intention of interfering with her plans just yet; at least not until he could determine why she had run away. It was quite the puzzle, really. But one that could be used to his advantage. Knowledge was power, and he was the only person who knew where Sam Manson had disappeared to. He also knew a few individuals who would pay dearly to know.

Speaking of which, the FBI had shown up on his doorstep about a week ago, asking questions. He'd been honest with them, except for a few minor details, of course. She'd heard from Daniel that he was friends with his family and like them, had an interest in ghosts. She'd come to him with the hope of buying equipment from him, at which point he'd turned her down and she had left. Naturally he had no clue were she had gone, but had thought she was going back home. At least that was what the authorities now thought. And he was safe, since the cab driver could back up the story, having never seen the gadgets she'd taken away with her.

In truth, he knew exactly where she was. He had waited a few weeks after the tracker had stopped showing substantial movement before coming to investigate. Perhaps there was something here she was seeking? But it appeared to be an average city, where she'd gotten a few average jobs, and lived in a below average apartment.

He had to admit she'd done a good job of settling in fast. Her employers all thought she was one Anna Billsbury, that she was nineteen years old instead of sixteen, and that she was a college student in need of a little extra cash. Somehow she'd learned how to forge herself an identity, with all the I's dotted and T's crossed on the necessary papers. He wasn't sure how, since he'd only been observing her for a day now, but it had been cleverly done. She'd probably had help, he mused. Successfully securing herself three jobs in such a short period of time also spoke volumes about her intelligence and hard working nature.

And then there was the fact that none of her employers knew about her other two jobs. She worked at a Target, at a local restaurant as a waitress, and at a book store. She had just come from the restaurant job, where she had helped to close up shop before heading home. Or to her apartment, in any case.

His attention was suddenly drawn back to the window as she moved out of the bathroom. She made her way to the bed and started changing for sleep. Oh. He turned around, suddenly embarrassed, and flew slowly away. There was no need to invade her privacy like that. Despite what some people might think about him, he was no peeping tom. He wondered briefly if Daniel ever abused his powers in such a way. Well, he is only sixteen, after all. The answer was probably yes. Vlad smirked to himself and flew towards his hotel. He was heading back home in the morning. Perhaps another visit in a few more weeks would shed some light on the mystery that was Sam Manson, but for now he had other things to deal with.

The next morning

Sam lay on her stomach on her bed, knees bent and feet swaying in the air, a laptop in front of her. She'd just moved into an apartment three days ago, and with searching for work, she was just now getting around to taking a look at her finances.

The sum total of her allowance money came to a little under three thousand dollars, and the jewelry, laptop, (although she turned right around and bought another cheaper one, which she was currently using) and other various items she had sold came to 980 dollars, 34 cents. So she had about four thousand dollars in cash. Not bad to start out with, really, if she played it smart.

Actually, Sam was way ahead of the curve financially speaking, since she'd expected to have to pay Vlad for the ghost equipment. Now that she was going over her expenses, she couldn't help be grateful for his decision. Not necessarily grateful toward him, but grateful none the less. She didn't trust Vlad an inch.

The apartment would cost her two hundred and ninety dollars per month, and food was about four hundred. (She wasn't skimping on the food; her health was important.) At the absolute bare minimum, living would probably cost her about seven hundred and fifty a month. So without an income, her money would be gone in a little over four months.

Of course, she did have an income. Her first step after getting the basic essentials taken care of (namely, securing herself a new identity and getting a hotel) was to begin a job hunt. And when all you do all day long, every day for a week and a half is look for part time jobs, you can and will find them. She now worked at Red Lobster, Borders, and Target, and they all thought she was a full time college student with only one side job. They also thought her name was Anna Billsbury.

She had a rather shady internet goth friend to thank for the new identity. She didn't feel too secure meeting him face to face, especially since he was familiar with some obviously illegal activities, but he'd sent her internet link after link that explained, as a group, how to forge yourself social security papers, drivers license, insurance, personal checks, and so on. She'd built herself a driver's license by painstakingly altering her original and buying a few choice items to help in the process. She'd also gotten started on fixing up a believable social security card for herself, but she had no intention of forging personal checks. She was not a thief. She would even pay her taxes, or at least her alter ego Anna Billsbury would.

As a waitress, she would get about ten dollars an hour, including tips, and at Borders and Target she made six fifty an hour. She wasn't allowed to work more than twenty nine hours a week as a part time employee, so she was assuming an average of twenty hours of work from each job. This meant sixty hours a week total, which came to four hundred and sixty dollars a week. So she should be able to make 1900 dollars a month, which more than covered her expenses.

Of course, she knew that after a few months she'd have to drop the restaurant job, which would drop her to a forty hour week and an income of 1100 dollars. There were a few months when she wouldn't be able to work at all as well. Her plan was to have at least 6500 dollars saved up after four and a half months (and hopefully closer to 7500.) At that point she would be able to drop work completely for over ten months without running into money issues. Theoretically. She'd never had to manage things on her own before, so the next few months would be the actual test to see if her estimates were anywhere near accurate.

She glanced to the corner of her laptop screen for the time. Hmm. It was already 11:30. It was time to get up and head out for work. As Sam got ready to go a feeling of discomfort passed over her, but she shook it off. She was on autopilot, and she preferred that. Everything was work, finances, task after task...and no emotion was necessary for any of it.

Maybe it wasn't healthy, to be this detached. Somewhere deep down, she even acknowledged that this had to be a form of shock. She'd probably break down sometime. But that was okay. She was currently functioning. She was getting everything done that had to get done. And that was all she could afford to let herself think about right now.

May 12, almost 5 months after

Danny lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling. It was nearly two in the morning. But tomorrow was a Saturday, so it wasn't that big of a deal. His mind was wandering, but it always came around to the same subject eventually.

Sam. She had been gone for seven weeks now; eight if you counted spring break. Two months. School would be out in a week. Then…it would be summer break. Jazz would be coming home from her first year at Yale.

She didn't know about Sam yet. He and Jazz kept in touch, but Danny hadn't wanted to tell her. And his parents had left the subject untouched. Sam was…Sam had been his best friend, not theirs, so it was his news to break. But he couldn't bring himself to tell her.

Actually, it was something he felt he had to hide from Jazz at all costs. This secret had the same priority as his ghost powers, and they were something Jazz had had to figure out about him on her own, as he recalled. She was so much smarter than he gave her credit for. Who knew, he might've already given Sam's disappearance away somehow through the phone conversations they had.

Danny sat up suddenly in bed. Who knew? Who knew! Of course! Danny jumped up from bed, going ghost in the process. He immediately went intangible and dropped through the floor, heading for the ghost portal in the basement. He'd been thinking back to when his future self had come back in time a few years ago, since that was when Jazz had told him she knew about his powers, and then it had occurred to him. Clockwork! He knew everything! He was the "master of time" or something like that, anyway, so even if he didn't know, he could take him back to when Sam had left, and they could see where she had gone!

He opened the ghost portal feverishly. Why hadn't he thought of this sooner? He just needed to visit Clockwork, and then…and then he could finally find Sam! It was almost too much to hope for, but he couldn't stop himself. She was so important to him, and he'd only just begun to really acknowledge it when she left. Her loss had clarified his feelings for her even more, however. He dove into the ghost zone, intent on finding Clockwork.

A few years ago Danny would've been terrified of going into the ghost zone alone, but not now. He had grown stronger over time, and felt relatively sure he was one of the strongest ghosts there, maybe even the strongest. He was the one to avoid now. So he didn't give it a second thought as he plunged haphazardly through the place, searching, searching…

Danny returned five hours later, aching with fatigue. It was light outside now, and he floated back to his bedroom, invisible, to crash onto his bed. Yet he couldn't fall asleep immediately. His mind was too awake, and needed to unwind.

He hadn't found Clockwork. He had travelled to where he remembered his strange home last existing, hadn't found it, and had looked a few other places, thinking his memory was off. Finally, in desperation, he'd sought out both the ghosts he knew and those he didn't to ask questions, but the results were invariably useless. They didn't even know who Clockwork was most of the time, assuming they didn't attack him on sight, of course. And now, after hours of futile effort, Danny lay on his bed face down and exhausted.

As he wound down, his emotions finally started kicking in. And he felt like kicking himself. He was such an idiot! He'd gotten his hopes up so high, again, just to have them dashed. She wasn't coming back, he wasn't going to find her, and there was nothing he could do about it. A hollow pit of pain seemed to be tearing through his chest as this knowledge sank in, and he had to bury his face in his pillow to keep from making noise as the tears ran down his face.

He knew now why he didn't want to tell Jazz what had happened. That was the last step toward acceptance, the last remaining spark of hope fizzling out. Jazz still thought Sam was in Amity Park; he could hear it in her voice now that he thought about it. And that gave him comfort. She didn't know anything was wrong; she didn't know about the gaping hole in his heart yet. And when she did find out, there would be no one he could pretend with any more.

In Idaho

Sam sat up in bed. It was very early in the morning, a little past five, and she didn't need to be awake for a few more hours since she didn't have work until nine (at Borders.) But she hadn't been sleeping well for the last several hours. Her thoughts, against her will, had finally turned to the people she'd left behind, and pain had come with the recognition of that.

So now she sat with questions running through her head: How were they doing? Were they coping? Were they still searching for her? Even as Sam asked that question she knew the answer.

Of course. Her parents would search for years, she knew. Their only child, gone missing, presumed a run away? They would search forever. And the community would help how they could. The Foleys would help, and the Fentons.

Sam's face crumpled slightly, and she brought her knees up, wrapping her arms around them. She let her forehead fall to her knees as tears, the first she'd shed since leaving, slowly slid down her face and dripped off her nose.

It hurt. It hurt to think of them. She...ached deep inside. She missed it all so much, the trips to the Nasty Burger, doing homework together, going to movies, ghost hunts...

Danny. She especially missed him. Sam sighed softly, and fell slowly to her side, where she lay in a fetal position.

A dark worry rose in her. What was he going through right now? She missed him so much, but...he had Tucker, Jazz, his parents, and she...she couldn't be that important to him, really. Not so important as to...

Sam shuddered slightly, and closed her eyes. Please Danny, please stay sweet...

It hurt to think of him experiencing the dark emotions associated with loss and mourning. He needed to remain pure and untainted by those feelings, and it tore at her to think that she had something to do with causing him pain like that. But surely it wasn't strong enough to change him? Yet Sam still worried tonight, for some reason.

Had he changed? Had he become more jaded, more hateful, more…more like him? The other him.

"Ha. Heh…hehehehahaha!" Sam grinned, forcing herself to laugh, as she had lately whenever her thoughts started drifting into darker territory. Hah! As if she was that important to him. Talk about getting a swelled head! Dream on, Sam.

Besides, the truth was, it would've been worse if she'd stayed behind.

And yet...if there was one thing Sam had come to understand about Danny, it was that he was delicate in some ways, and thus needed certain constants in his life. He needed friends and family, and so deep down Sam knew her leaving had hurt him deeply. She could only hope that…

She sighed again and sniffled a little in an attempt to be rid of the tears that were threatening again. Please don't change, Danny…

Two days later.

Vlad was speechless. He just didn't know what to say, not that he was speaking out loud any time soon anyway. He had come back to Idaho the day before to check up on Samantha Manson.

He was now floating along behind her, invisible, as she slowly perused wedding rings in a jewelry store. Wedding rings. He'd been following her through her day for the past hour, and was still flabbergasted. He couldn't think of an instance in which he'd been this completely surprised in years, and his mind had yet to kick in with suggestions, rationalizations, and so on as it usually rather quickly did.

"May I help you, Ma'am?" Vlad shuddered as a store clerk walked right through him. The clerk shuddered too.

She turned partly around from the ring display. "Actually, I just need the cheapest wedding ring you've got."

"Do you know what you'd like it to look like? Gold, platinum, with a diamond…"

"Just plain gold. Unless there's something cheaper that still looks like a wedding ring. And I'll be paying with cash, if that's alright."

The clerk looked slightly surprised by the last comment, but recovered quickly. "That's perfectly fine. Why don't you come down this way, and I'll show you a few…" Vlad tuned out the conversation as he floated slowly after them.

She was getting married? To who? And honestly, it was already a little late for that, wasn't it?

Because, after staring at her in utter amazement for the last hour, he had finally acknowledged what seemed so impossible to grasp. Sam Manson…Sam Manson was pregnant. He wasn't sure by how many months, but ladies didn't get as big as she was in just two months, so he guessed she must've been pregnant before moving to Idaho. And…she had probably known when she left, he realized.

He watched her absentmindedly as she forked over three hundred dollars to the clerk for a small ring, already on her finger. She was at the cute stage, he thought, where it was clear she was pregnant, yet she didn't look like a house. She wouldn't be particularly encumbered by it for a few more months yet. Probably. He was hardly a judge of these things.

The obvious question, and the one he was putting off thinking about, was who was the father? He knew she and Danny were close, but not like that. At least not yet. He knew because he had the boy watched very closely, and to a lesser extent his friends as well. And she was his best friend.

Therefore Vlad knew she wasn't the type to get into this situation by being irresponsible. She was the falling in love, getting married, and then having children type. And he'd predicted it would be with Daniel, who he knew she had feelings for.

Daniel's feelings for her were also as clear as day and had only become more obvious during her absence. Vlad had truly felt sorry for the boy over the past few months, since he himself had gone through similar hardship when he lost Maddie to Jack. Because of this, Vlad had seriously considered telling Daniel her whereabouts, but he had wanted to know why she had left first, before taking any definite action. He needed to secure his position of power.

Unfortunately, the fact that she was pregnant simplified things while opening up a new and bigger can of worms. It was clear now why she had run away. But the question still remained: who was the father?

Daniel wasn't, and Samantha Manson wasn't the type to simply run around with people. Despite her vegetarian goth exterior, she was quite traditional in many ways. She also kept the ghost catcher with her at all times, and this wasn't Amity Park. Ghosts were few and far between. It looked like she was afraid of being attacked by a ghost, but it couldn't be Daniel and it certainly wasn't himself. She'd come to him for the protection, after all.

He frowned, a firm suspicion growing in his mind. He had a feeling it was a ghost that had placed her in her current predicament, and probably one of Daniel's enemies. He certainly was good at making them, and that would further explain why she had left. She wouldn't want Daniel to find out, because he would feel responsible. And she was bound to feel ashamed as well, although he wondered if that would be enough to make her run away. If there was one thing he had learned about her after observing her for several years, it was that she was a very, very strong person, and deserving of Daniel's friendship. Vlad didn't think she'd flee purely out of shame.

Still, this made things complicated for him. He didn't want to risk Daniel's animosity (alright….further animosity), but he couldn't afford to tell him about her just yet. The concept of a living person having a child with a ghost was just too amazing, too scientifically fascinating to pass by. It was an amazing concept, from an intellectual point of view, a concept he was certain Daniel wouldn't appreciate. Vlad hadn't known it was even possible for a ghost and a human to have a child together, though he had wondered, but she seemed to be confirming it right before his eyes.

Of course, he could be missing something, and thus have jumped to the wrong conclusion. Perhaps it was a human father after all? But he had a feeling he was right.

Vlad pursed his lips. He'd have to watch over her very carefully from now on. She was his new pet project, and he didn't want anything to go wrong with the pregnancy. She would get the best doctors, and would be taken care of in every way he could manage without giving away his involvement, unless it became absolutely necessary.

Ironically, Vlad had privately thought that all his curiosity on this subject would be put to rest when Daniel got married and started having children, but it appeared someone had beaten him to the punch. Of course, they were a full ghost, unlike Daniel, which would presumably effect the child even more.

Already he was brimming with curiosity. Would it be a halfa, or a full human? What powers would it have, and how would it effect the mother? Or perhaps…it would even be a full ghost? Raising a dead child…what a strange concept.

Still, there was the issue of who the father was. He needed to look over Danny's encounters with ghosts over the past few years (Vlad had archived all his little adventures) and hopefully narrow it down to who the perpetrator was.

Sam looked down at the ring on her finger as she stepped out of the shop. She didn't know why she hadn't thought of getting one earlier. As she started to become visibly pregnant, whispers and stares had sprung up as well. She was a little under five months along now.

People didn't think very highly of an unmarried pregnant lady. She hated the negative attention, but more importantly she couldn't afford to draw any sort of unnecessary attention to herself, negative or positive. Her goal was to blend in, so people gossiping about her was a bad thing.

Thus the ring, coupled with a story she would be circulating with the co-workers (only when asked of course.) As far as they would know, she'd been married for over a year, but didn't like wearing the ring because the gold irritated her skin slightly. And she didn't accessorize well (which was actually the truth.) She'd married right out of high school, and while she had decided to go to college, her husband had taken the military route. He was currently serving oversees, which was why she lived alone, if anyone found out. His name was Bob, and her maiden name was Penndel. And that covered all the bases, in her opinion. If other questions ever came up, she'd just add lib.

Not that she expected anything more than a few casual questions from a few of her co-workers, but it was good to be prepared. In any case, things would go easier now with her husband "Bob" in the picture.

Author's Note: Okay, I hope you guys like this! This chapter is kind of a medium length one for me. I've got a real doozy of a chapter in a few chapters, and the first chapter was kind of short. Anyway...good or bad, I'd love to hear what you think of this, so please review!